


the world that's waiting up for me

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: Week Three: Talents [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Kitty Section, Music, back to the liberty again i just really like julekas whole family okay, liberty!adrien, plagg being either a bad influence or a good one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 23:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: "You know I'd rather be at band practice, Plagg." Adrien looks longingly at the window.  "But it's going to be another hour before Nathalie stops checking in, and they'll probably be done by then."Plagg darts across the room and comes back with Adrien's phone, dropping it in front of him.  "So tell them that! They'll wait for you!""That's hardly fair to them." Adrien eyes his phone anyway.  He doesn't know if Plagg is right that they'd wait for him, but they'd probably let him spend at least a little time hanging out together.  He's going to be out later as Chat Noir anyway. Nathalie hardly ever checks in past eight; what harm would it do if he left a little early tonight?





	the world that's waiting up for me

**Author's Note:**

> for the 'music' prompt for adrienaugreste, thanks shinobicyrus!

"Why do you always play such _ boring _ music?" Plagg complains, flitting around the piano and phasing through Adrien's sheet music, rumpling the pages. Adrien is _ sure _ Plagg could pass through the pages without disturbing them if he wanted to but then he knows Plagg _ likes _ to cause a mess.

"It's classical, Plagg, it's not boring," Adrien says mildly.

Plagg snorts and bats at the pages of sheet music. "I don't even think you _ like _ this song."

Adrien pauses, fingers hovering just above the keys. "Mother liked Clair de Lune."

Plagg's expression changes, but he looks away too fast for Adrien to be sure what it changes _ to_. "There's other Debussy, kid, if you're that set on classical. Or there's Vivaldi, you could play Vivaldi! Or I like Masques, if it's really _ gotta _ be Debussy."

Adrien sighs and lifts his hands from the piano entirely. "I'm- you know it doesn't, you know I'd rather be at band practice." He looks longingly at the window. "But it's going to be another hour before Nathalie stops checking in, and they'll probably be done by then."

Plagg darts across the room and comes back with Adrien's phone, dropping it in front of him. "So tell them that! They'll wait for you!"

"That's hardly fair to them, Plagg." Adrien eyes his phone anyway. He doesn't know if Plagg is right that they'd wait for him, but they'd probably let him spend at least a little time hanging out together. He's going to be out later as Chat Noir anyway. Nathalie hardly ever checks in past eight; what harm would it do if he left a little early tonight? 

"Or you could go _ now_," his kwami adds slyly. "Nathalie hasn't checked this late since Hero's Day, kid, she isn't gonna pick it back up now. An’ I don’t think your bodyguard’s gonna be much of a problem."

Adrien hesitates, but he does take his phone.

Plagg cackles. "Convinced you that easily, didn't I?"

"Oh, quiet, you." Adrien swaps his sheet music for his phone and hits Play on a recording on one of his more recent practice sessions. "Claws on!"

Adrien thumps down a careful distance from the Liberty, not wanting to risk Chat Noir and Adrien Agreste appearing too close together. 

He tilts his head, ears flicking curiously. He knows he has good hearing, and even better hearing with Plagg's help, but he's still pretty sure he shouldn't be able to hear the music from the boat from _ here_.

It doesn't sound like the band's usual music.

He doesn't hear Rose at all, for one thing, unless she's the one giggling in the background. He definitely doesn't hear Ivan, and he _ does _ hear someone playing violin. He didn't even know they _ had _ a violin.

He detransforms and darts for the boarding plank, staying hidden more out of habit than necessity. No one on the Liberty is likely to tell his father that he's snuck out; his classmates know how much trouble he would be in, and he has the impression that Juleka and Luka's mother approves of his sneaking out anyway.

"Adrien!" Rose greets him enthusiastically as soon as he makes it onto the ship. "We didn't think you'd be able to come!"

Adrien glances around, blinking. "Looks like I'm not the only one. No Ivan tonight?"

"Something came up," Luka calls from the bow, where he's furiously playing guitar even as he replies. Across from him Juleka is playing a violin just as fiercely. "He couldn't make it, and Rose is still trying to write lyrics to the new song anyway, so you haven't missed much."

Adrien picks his way carefully over to the bow, stepping over several discarded notebooks on the way. He's learned from other times he's managed to make it to band practise that Rose has a tendency to see a pretty journal and decide to get it, completely disregarding that she's never once filled a journal to capacity, and therefore Kitty Section's lyrics are scattered across several different journals. 

It doesn't help that Luka's doing the same thing with the same journals when he writes out the actual music notations. Rose clearly doesn't mind- Juleka uses her journals, too, after all- but it does make trying to find specific songs again a challenge. 

Juleka lowers her violin and nods at the cell phone resting between herself and her brother. "We were looking for inspiration, if you want to help with that."

Adrien leans over the paused phone, studying it with interest. "The Piano Guys?"

Luka sets his guitar aside. "We got here from a Lindsey Stirling link that Mylene sent, I think. But it's pretty fun." He waits for Adrien to sit back, then picks up the phone himself and thumbs out of the video and onto another one. "Here, listen-"

Adrien listens. 

"I recognise the Vivaldi," he says, finally. "But I don't recognise the other tune they're playing."

Rose lets out a very odd sound that would have made Adrien's cat ears swivel if he'd been transformed.

Juleka and Luka, by contrast, don't look surprised.

"It's from Frozen," Luka explains, as Juleka takes the phone from him and starts to type something. "It's Let It Go. It was really inescapable right after the movie came out, but you wouldn't have-" He stops. 

Adrien smiles wanly. "I wouldn't have been out enough to hear it. It's okay, Luka, you can say it."

Juleka looks up from the phone. Adrien still isn't sure if it's her phone, Luka's, or even Rose's. "Hey, still no Ivan, but Marinette and Alya are going to stop by. Marinette's got new designs for us."

"What about Nino?" Rose calls, still scribbling furiously in a journal. "Luka wanted to talk to him!"

"You did?" Adrien asks, tilting his head. He knows that Nino and Luka know each other, but he didn't think they knew each other very _ well_. 

"Yeah, he did something really interesting with his last remix and I wanted to ask him about it, maybe see if he wanted to help with a song or two." Luka picks his guitar back up. "I know the sort of classical mixed with pop stuff we were thinking of trying isn't really his thing, but I thought he might be interested anyway."

The phone pings again and Juleka waves to catch their attention. "Yep, Nino too. He was with Alya, they're all coming."

Adrien brightens. "All of them?"

Luka laughs and, unexpectedly, reaches out to gently ruffle Adrien's hair. Adrien fights to keep from freezing up at first, and then he has to fight not to start purring. He's not used to- the only people who are ever so casually physical with him are Ladybug and Nino. (And Chloe, but that's different in a way Adrien doesn't have words for).

He does manage to keep himself from purring. He doesn't manage to keep himself from pushing into the contact, hopeful that Luka won't mind.

If Luka _does_ mind he doesn't show it. He ruffles Adrien's hair again and then slides over on his deck chair, leaving just enough space for Adrien. "They're gonna be a few minutes. Wanna hear the last song we found?"

Rose appears next to them, grinning happily. She has a sketchbook in one hand and brightly coloured ink smudged all over her other palm. "And then when the others get here we can see if there's any way we can practice this with them."

"Do any of them play an instrument?" Juleka asks, raising her head and blowing her bangs out of her face. "I don't think I've ever _ heard _any of them play."

"Alya's learning flute, I think?" Rose offers. "And Marinette can sing really well!"

"We have a singer." Luka's lips twitch. "Rose, _ you're _ our singer."

Rose shrugs, undeterred. "No one said we couldn't have another. Besides, you wanna try this too, don't you?" She points at the video Juleka's pulled up, the one Adrien still hasn't looked at. "We need two singers for it."

Juleka presses play before the conversation can go on any longer.

To Adrien's surprise, Luka shuts his eyes and sings along with the opening of the song. Adrien's never heard Luka sing before, but somehow he's not surprised that the other boy is good at it. "I close my eyes, and I can see, a world that's waiting up for me, that I call my own-"

Rose and Juleka both pick up at, "I wish I could be the perfect daughter, but I come back to the water, no matter how hard I try-"

"Every turn I take," Rose sings, the sudden sadness in her voice a startling contrast with her usual cheerful screaming. "Every path I make-"

At the same time, Luka's singing softly along with, "They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy. They can say I've lost my mind-"

Nino's voice echoes from the boarding plank. "You guys know this isn't what I meant by remixes, right? This is _ not _my wheelhouse, dude."

Behind him, Alya looks at the wheelhouse, then at Adrien, and rolls her eyes. Marinette giggles, though she isn't meeting _ anyone's _ eyes right now.

"Nino!" Rose cheers, breaking off from the song entirely. Luka's voice lingers for a moment longer, the only sound on the boat just long enough to complete the line, "We can live in a world that we design." 

Rose darts down to the others and starts to pull them eagerly onto the boat, letting go of one person's hands only to grab someone else's. "Come on, let's go play!"

"Don't you mean practice?" Alya asks, raising an amused eyebrow as she follows Rose onto the bow. 

Juleka brushes her bangs from her face again, revealing a more affectionate smile than Adrien thinks he's ever seen from her before. "Trust me, she knows exactly what she said."

**Author's Note:**

> you can actually listen to that mash-up [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eQZBzVWXYs)
> 
> (i had a thing about refusing to get back OFF boats as a kid <s>and still sorta do</s>, i am jealous of the liberty)


End file.
